Friday, October 30, 2015

I am still trying to figure out why the RNC is still whining about the debates Wednesday night.

They actually cut ties with NBC because of the perceived bias against the poor republicans by that network.

I honestly don't get it. Obviously Ben Carson and company does not understand the meaning of the word debate. In a debate you are supposed to get tough questions and answer them to the satisfaction of the person asking them.

"'We were betrayed,” he (Rance Priebus) said, “and I think the candidates were betrayed by CNBC.”'

Huh? "Betrayed"? These men (and woman) are trying to lead the most powerful country on earth and they can't handle a couple of questions from CNBC moderators? That's not a good look. Hillary hung in for 11 hours while facing down Trey Howdy Gowdy and his faux Benghazi(drink,drink, gulp) hearings. They are lucky Black folks don't care about them, because, like Hillary, they would have had to deal with the Black Lives Matter kids as well.

“It’s not about me and gotcha questions, it’s abut the American people and whether they have the right to actually hear what we think,” Carson insisted.

Ben, we hear what you think, we just can't believe that you are serious.

Finally, I bring you eating while black. "Elmer's Restaurant told a state investigator that it did not discriminate against an African-American customer by making him prepay for his breakfast, as the customer claims in a lawsuit.Rather, the Vancouver restaurant told an investigator with the Washington State Human Rights Commission that it made customer Brian Eason prepay for his meal only because he sat in the lounge area, where customers had previously left without paying.Eason has filed a complaint with the commission stating that two white customers dining in the lounge area hadn't been told to prepay, but the restaurant responded by saying those customers hadn't ordered alcohol while Eason had.That's all according to a report released Thursday, a day after The Oregonian/OregonLive requested the report and broke news about Eason's lawsuit.Eason filed a $100,000 racial discrimination lawsuit against the restaurant after the state investigator closed the case without taking any action, finding insufficient evidence to show racism. Investigator Jeremy Page found there was "No Reasonable Cause to conclude that discrimination took place."Elmer's Restaurants have declined to comment to The Oregonian/OregonLive about the details of the incident.Mark McDougal, a Portland attorney representing Eason, criticized the investigator's finding and described the restaurant's explanation as a "ridiculous" story conjured up to defend itself."It's not believable," McDougal said. "What else are they going to say? They have to come up with some explanation."Eason filed the complaint in January 2015 after he dined at the Elmer's near the Vancouver Mall on Dec. 16, 2014. Eason told The Oregonian/OregonLive that he got the sense that the investigator who took his complaint wasn't taking him seriously, so he turned to the law firm of Kafoury & McDougal to file a lawsuit.The lawsuit was filed Tuesday, about two weeks after the state investigator issued his findings.Eason's lawsuit is reminiscent of complaints in the early 1990s of thousands of black customers nationwide who had accused the Denny's restaurant chain of discriminatory treatment, including demanding prepayment or refusing to serve them. Faced with widespread evidence, Denny's settled in 1994 for $54 million.For readers who missed Wednesday's story about Eason, here's some background:Eason had visited the restaurant to find a quiet place to write out Christmas cards to his clients, according to his suit. He is a real-estate agent, as well as a Multnomah County sheriff's deputy.Eason said after ordering his breakfast and a Bloody Mary, the waitress told him he'd have to prepay because a few people had recently left the restaurant without paying. Eason said he didn't think anything of prepaying, but when he later ordered a second drink and the waitress again said he'd have to prepay, he questioned her more about it."I said, 'This is kind of odd that I have to prepay every time I order my food and drink,'" Eason recounted. "She said, 'I think it's discrimination and my boss is here, and she's forcing me to have me do this.'"Eason told The Oregonian/OregonLive that the waitress was very apologetic. He said he saw another woman he thought might be the manager who appeared to be watching over the waitress.About 30 minutes after leaving, Eason said he grew to be so bothered by what had transpired that he returned to the restaurant and asked two white customers who were sitting at the table where he had been if they'd also been told to prepay. The customers said no, and Eason got their contact information from them, Eason said.On Thursday, McDougal said he doesn't believe the distinction that the restaurant made between Eason and the white customers -- that the white customers weren't ordered to prepay because they didn't order alcohol.If the restaurant wanted to curb theft, asking only customers who sat in the lounge or only customers who ordered alcohol to prepay doesn't make much sense, McDougal said."You can order pancakes and walk out," McDougal said. "The idea that people who order drinks are less likely to pay is nonsense."In the Vancouver Elmer's response to the Human Rights Commission, the restaurant stated there may have been some confusion about its policy of asking customers in the lounge area to prepay, according to the investigator's summary. The restaurant stated the white couple was served by a different waitress, who believed the prepay policy only applied to people who ordered alcohol, according to the investigator's summary. [Source]*Pic from tripadvisor.com

Thursday, October 29, 2015

I I was watching the republican debate last night, and I was thinking to myself, how did we come to this? Forget, for a minute, that the candidates told lie after lie after lie about their previous statements and policies. (It was so bad with Trump that he lied about his own words on his own website.) Not to mention their whining about everything from the green room to the moderators. There were so many of them that the poor moderators couldn't keep up. But hey, this is where we are with this party these days; everyone thinks that they can be the leader of the free world.

In a way I blame Barack Obama for this phenomenon. (If that n****r can do it so can we.)The "derangement syndrome" has been so strong that the folks on the other side wanted the reddest meat thrown at them to satisfy their hunger and hatred of the "hope and change" guy.

Then there are those folks in the so called middle--- the independents as they call themselves. They are not much better. Many of these same people support Trump now. He is the new outsider who will bring change to Washington.

Eight years ago they wanted the "magic Negro," but not even the tall, magical, bi-racial- "well spoken"-fellow from Chicago could deliver on that fantasy. To make matters worse, the racial animus and ignorance which was hidden under the surface for years came roaring to the top. And it wasn't just the dumb rednecks in places like Mississippi and Arkansas. Powerful people in the halls of Congress harbored this hatred as well. (You lie!)

So here we are. No matter what he (Obama) did could have been enough them. He could have given everyone of his haters a house, a car, and tax free income for life, and they would have complained that the house doesn't have an ocean view.

"Over time, the hostility toward Obama grew dramatically, and so did racist statements. Actually, it did not take very long. One year into his presidency, ABC News catalogued an array of racially tinged and overtly racist statements or actions taken against Obama. They came from election and party officials and media figures, including Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. In the years since, the number of prominent figures using race as a wedge only grew. They include a New Hampshire police commissioner using the "N" word to refer to the president, a Montana federal district judge sending racist emails, and many others.

Most troubling is that some of the most loathsome comments have been enabled and legitimized. After Ted Nugent called the president of the United States a "subhuman mongrel"—a term CNN's Wolf Blitzer noted was used by the Nazis to justify the extermination of Jews—Texas gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott welcomed this incendiary and hateful figure at a campaign event. And Colorado Senate candidate Tom Tancredo excitedly announced that he had gotten Nugent to contribute one of his assault weapons for Tancredo to auction off to help finance his campaign.*

When Ann Coulter referred to the black president as a "monkey" for Vladimir Putin—one of the most vile terms to apply to an African American, a term that, when used without malice by the late Howard Cosell to refer to a football player, resulted in massive criticism and ultimate removal from Monday Night Football—Fox News host Sean Hannity was taken aback, albeit in a bemused way, and offered Coulter a chance to rephrase. She refused. Many conservatives criticized her for the remarks, but she was right back on Hannity's TV and radio shows without any hiatus or punishment."
But it's almost over now. Soon, the family of color will be leaving the White House. America's political class will go back to "normal", and hopefully political debates will once again look like....well, debates.

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Let me start this post by saying I wish Anonymous Hackers good luck with their effort to expose the names of KKK members all over the country. It should be interesting to see some of the names on their list if they are successful.

"In November 2014, during the wait for a grand jury's decision whether to indict police officer Darren Wilson for the killing of Michael Brown, the KKK reportedly threatened to attack Ferguson protesters. Anonymous then commandeered a KKK-linked Twitter account and exposed social media accounts it said belonged to KKK members. Now, nearly a year after the grand jury elected not to indict Wilson, Anonymous wrote in a Wednesday blog post that it "will release, to the global public, the identities of up to 1000 klan members, Ghoul Squad affiliates and other close associates of various factions of the Ku Klux Klan across the Unites States."'
Oh ohhh.

I always thought that if you are going to be a member of a group like the KKK you should do so openly.

We need to know where you stand on the issues and have an open debate about our different positions as it relates to how the races should interact going forward in this country. Granted, your group has taken a public relations hit of late, but it's never too late to try and redeem yourself.

Everyone believes that the klan is made up of a bunch of dumb rednecks, maybe if some of their members removed their hoods and come clean it would reveal more "educated main stream" type folks. Heck there might even be a presidential candidate or two among the membership.

Finally, a word from one of my favorite black conservatives and FOX VIEWS pundits.

"Conservative Sheriff Warns That #BlackLivesMatter Will ‘Join Forces with ISIS’

Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke said on Twitter Tuesday that #BlackLivesMatter and ISIS would soon be working together to destroy America. Clarke is a frequent Fox News guest and a harsh critic of the #BlackLivesMatter protest group, calling them “garbage” and “subhuman creeps”. Liberals have responded in kind, with New York Daily News columnist Shaun King calling him an “Uncle Tom” and “a sellout” Monday."

No Shaun, Sheriff David is worse than an "Uncle Tom". Sheriff David is a "slave -catcher." He is the type of Negro Mr. Charlie would ask to whip the slaves when he got too tired to do it himself, and he would be all too glad to oblige.

Anyway, what's amazing is that this man actually got elected to be the mayor of Milwaukee. Forget political views for minute, the man is just plain stupid. "Black Lives Matter will join forces with Isis"? My lord! Somebody check for hoods in that man's closet.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

I spent a lot of time on twitter last night. (@fieldnegro) Like most people of conscience (Not you Don, I know that you have to maintain a certain amount of coonery to keep your job. And don't even get me started on this guy.) I was outraged after watching the assault of that female high school student in South Carolina by Deputy Ben Fields.

Once again we have to say thanks to the folks who brought us cell phone cameras, because without the cell phone camera we would not have been able to once again see what goes on when certain folks believe that no one is looking.

This police officer clearly lost his mind, and his "color arousal" issues caused him to go into full combat mode on a female (emphasis on female) high school student.

But alas, that is not the reason for my post. What I want to blog about tonight is the response from the officer's superior to the incident.

This is what Sheriff Leon Lott said. (Yes, that's his name.)

"The sheriff did not release the footage but admitted he was revolted by what he saw in the first two student-made videos that drew nationwide outrage.“I'm very disturbed by it," Lott said. "I wanted to throw up."

But wait....

"He’s no racist, he’s dating a black woman.Deputy Ben Fields has been dating an African-American woman for “quite some time,” Richard County Sheriff Leon Lott said.“Would that have a bearing on his thought process?” Lott mused. “It may have, but I would think that would have effected it in a positive way, not a negative way." But Lott said both the student’s teacher and the administrator “felt the deputy acted appropriately.”'
Huh?
I guess all those plantation owners who raped their house slaves back in the day were just trying to understand their slaves a little better, and they were in no way racist. Noooo.

Sadly, folks, sometimes the response to a horrific incident such as this can be just as bad and as telling as the incident itself.

Just wait and see all the support this officer will get from a certain segment of the population.

For example, this was from Mediaite's comments section after a post about the incident:

Anyway, there is plenty more of those types of comments all over the Internet. You will see some of them right here after this post.

"Well, both Lemon and Hostin returned to The Situation Room tonight for a follow-up discussion. Now that more information has come out about the confrontation and the officer involved, Lemon defended what he said.He argued that the job of journalists is to gather all possible information before drawing any conclusions from it, that the flow of information needs to continue.We are a news network, Lemon said, which provides context and information and knowledge to our viewers. Knowledge is power. The more information you have, the better it is."

"Sadly, it seems, “walking while black” can have dangerous consequences.That’s because a recent study suggests motorists are less likely to stop for an African American pedestrian in a crosswalk. A black pedestrian’s wait time at the curb was about 32 percent longer than a white person’s. Black pedestrians were about twice as likely as white pedestrians to be passed by multiple vehicles.The small but provocative study — conducted by researchers at Portland State University in Oregon and the University of Arizona — suggests that biases just outside people’s conscious awareness can make them less likely to yield to minority pedestrians. And that could put those pedestrians at risk, said Kimberly B. Kahn, an assistant professor of social psychology at Portland State University.Put another way: Not only do black men have to worry about being hassled — and possibly shot — by police for simply being black, they have to worry about being run over by motorists.Kahn said a follow-up study is underway to see whether drivers also discriminate based on gender and whether crosswalk design and signage might change driver behavior.But can it change deep-rooted stereotypes? Ralph Ellison devoted a novel to the profound invisibility of African Americans. Researchers have shown the same thing. Taxi drivers roll past black people hailing taxis. Doctors miss telltale signs of critical medical conditions. Teachers fail to see a minority child’s gifts.Implicit bias describes the way that people may unconsciously be biased toward others based on their race, gender or some other group category even if they are not explicitly racist in their thinking.Yet those subtle biases can emerge when people encounter a stressful situation or make split-second decisions, such as when driving. A U.S. study found that people in expensive or “high-status” vehicles were the least likely to yield to a pedestrian. An Israeli study found that drivers are more likely to yield to pedestrians in their own age group.The effect of such subtle biases is complex. But it might cause minority pedestrians to act in ways that put themselves in danger, such as forcing the right-of-way when cars fail to stop for them, Kahn said." [More here.]

Donald seems to be suggesting that the Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) church seems to be somehow on the fringes of American religious orthodoxy, and he says that he is "not so sure" if it is as mainstream as other religions.

I have news for Mr. Trump, he needs to study the different religions and their beliefs in America a little more closely. The folks in the SDA church are quite mainstream, and they have a health message that is way ahead of what all the other religions are pushing. (Check out this study about Loma Linda, California.) And the charitable work that the world church does is not too shabby, either. As churches go, there is a lot to like about SDA. If you check out the average income and educational level of Seventh Day Adventists (black and white) you will find that it is not too bad.

"But field, why do they go to church on Saturdays and not Sundays like everyone else?"
Well there is that whole Exodus 20:9 thing. If you study your religious history you will find that the Seventh Day Adventist actually gets it right when it comes to following the Ten Commandments and not all those Sunday worshiping churches.

But I digress.

So why is The Donald going after Gentle Ben now? Well it seems that for the first time Donald is losing to Dr. Ben in one of these primary polls. The slip in his overall numbers that all the pundits have been predicting seems to be on the horizon, and that is causing much panic in camp Donald.

So now Donald will do what he does best: attack. I just don't want him attacking the one religion in America that I have a history with. Heck he shouldn't be attacking any religion. I mean we all know how he feels about Muslims, and America being America he has been allowed to get away with that.

Gentle Ben has attacked Muslims as well, which makes it hard for him to take the high road against Trump for doing the exact same thing that he did to others.

"I’m Presbyterian,” Trump said on Saturday in Jacksonville. “Boy, that’s down the middle of the road, folks, in all fairness. I mean, Seventh-day Adventist I don’t know about. I just don’t know about it.”I know about it, and trust me when I tell you that if more folks were SDA (not the Ben Carson type of SDA) America would probably be a much better place.

Friday, October 23, 2015

Thursday, October 22, 2015

I am watching these Benghazi *drink, drink, gulp* hearings, and I must say that Hillary Clinton is quite the trooper. How long has it been? Ten hours? Wow!

If only we could have investigated the unnecessary deaths of over 4,500 Americans in Iraq like we did these 4 in Libya. There has been eight different committees convened and thirty three different hearings about Benghazi *drink , drink, gulp* since that tragic incident, and the FOX VIEWS crowd and their republican friends are probably wishing that we could have thirty three more.

Full disclosure: My wife is no fan of Hillary Clinton (that whole knock -down drag- out campaign against president Obama back in the day soured her on Bill's better half), but she has been watching these hearings this evening and she has declared that is definitely voting for Hillary now. Leave it to my overreaching republican friends to make Hillary Clinton a sympathetic figure.

How many more Mrs. Fields there are out there? I am curious to know if she will get a bump in the polls after this marathon session in the hot seat. Probably not much. People are pretty much set in their positions when it comes to Hillary. Those who hate her will continue to do so, and those who love her will probably love her even more.

“That’s what happened during the Reagan administration, when Hezbollah attacked our embassy,” Mrs. Clinton said, citing similar bipartisanship around investigations under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. “I would like us to get back to those times.”
Sorry Mrs. Clinton, we will not be going back to those times. Because sadly, the inmates are now in full control of the asylum.

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

The following article was written by a white man for the Huffington Post.

'"Watch your black ass, you little n*****!"

Captain Lee Abbott, my direct commander at Fort Stewart, GA, issued this inelegant warning to a boy crossing the street as we drove home through the small town of Hinesville in the summer of 1967. I was a young Army Lieutenant.

Captain Abbott came to regret this comment. Several weeks later I served as Defense Counsel in a Courts Martial of a black enlisted man who had gone Absent Without Leave (AWOL) from his German base. He claimed, and documented, an ugly history of racist behavior and racial slurs that drove him to abandon his unit. The panel of officers judging the case, including Captain Abbott, was barely attentive as I presented this racist experience as a matter of extenuation and mitigation, as allowed under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. My passionate defense elicited a yawn here and a smirk there. Irritated, I quoted Captain Abbott to provide inarguable evidence of racism. He was not happy. The accused soldier was found guilty - he was guilty - but no sentence was imposed. It was a small victory for justice.

This memory arose when I considered the arguments in so-called Fisher II, the affirmative action case scheduled to be argued before the United States Supreme Court on December 9th.

Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin is the highly publicized challenge of plaintiff Abigail Fisher, a white woman, who was denied admission to the University and claimed it was due to her race, thus a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The University's race-conscious admission policy was upheld in District Court, appealed to the Supreme Court in 2012, remanded, affirmed once again by the Fifth Circuit in 2014, and appealed once again by Fisher et al. The case has become the most crucial battleground for race-conscious admissions in education. A great deal is at stake for those of us who work in schools and colleges.

This is not an abstract argument to me or other school leaders. Many of the girls and boys of color who attend my school are relatively poor, as are some of the white children. But only children of color report being followed in stores. Only children of color have been stopped and frisked by New York City's finest. Only children of color have been tardy to school because they could not hail a taxi when the subway was down. Only children of color endure white kids adopting their language and music without understanding the experiences that accompany the culture. Only a child of color watched as her father was asked to clean up a spill in our school by a white parent who assumed he was a member of our maintenance staff (a position of greater dignity than held by the white parent, I might add).

My school recently produced a documentary film titled, I'm Not Racist... Am I? Therein, students of color and white students engage in honest, raw, often endearing dialogue about the realities of race in America. The students of color bring uncommon wisdom and courage to the conversation. This powerful experience happened only because we and others have crafted diverse school communities where a critical mass of students of color are finally heard, not left to watch from the fringes of the school. It is deeply troubling to think that crafting such a community might be seen as denying any white students of their rights.

Affirmative action is a modest and gentle tool. Lifting a few heads above the water does not drown folks like Abigail Fisher. As has been well documented, she would have been denied by University of Texas at Austin regardless of her race. She and other white students have an ocean of opportunity.
The plaintiffs and their supporters would have you believe that racial discrimination and hatred are things of the past. They regard affirmative action as "reverse racism," as though such a thing can possibly exist. Racism requires power and privilege, attributes in short supply in communities of color. As events all over America in recent years make painfully clear, racism is very much alive. We have not made progress since 2008.

Other children crossed the street too as Captain Abbott and I made our way through Hinesville that day in 1967. They were all poor. Only one boy was black, as Captain Abbott crudely noted. Sadly, I'm not sure we've made much progress since that sunny afternoon in Georgia either." [Source]

I am watching this Abigail Fisher case closely, and so should you. Because, quite frankly, there are still a lot of Captain Abbots running around today.

'Went to @schwankekasten jewelry today in White-Fish Bay during regular business hours . They locked the door and told me to go away . After I rang the doorbell twice everyone went to the back. No answered the door or told me what was going on. This was followed by two police cars pulling up and parking across the street and watching me for 5 minutes ( I assumed they were called by the store ) . I was then approached by 2 officers and questioned about the dealer vehicle I was in which is apart of my endorsement deal with Kunes country Chevrolet and asked me what I wanted amongst other things that were just irrelevant to me being there just trying to shop at the store like a normal paying customer would do . I told them I was just trying to look at a watch. He then had to go in the back and tell them to come out it was safe but this is after they ran my plates and I overheard them talking about doing more of a background check on the car. The employees finally came out of the back and proceeded to conduct business like they previously were as we walked up . This was one of the the most degrading and racially prejudice things I've ever experienced in life and wouldn't wish this on anyone . This store needs to be called out and that's what I'm doing . You have no right to profile someone because of their race and nationality and this incident needs to be brought to light and I urge anyone who ever is thinking of shopping here reads this and doesn't bring any business to this discriminatory place.'

Dixon said the store has had three armed robberies in 18 months, and one of the suspect vehicles involved is from the same dealership as Henson's vehicle. Dixon said when employees saw the vehicle with dealer plates, they became suspicious based on the previous robberies.

Whitefish Bay police released a statement providing additional details on the situation. According to the release, store employees were concerned due to recent phone calls to the store and thefts of Rolex watches at an area store. When police made contact with Henson, he informed them he played for the Bucks and officers relayed that message to store employees, who then opened the door. Via WTMJ:

'The officer called dispatch to request that a Schwanke-Kasten employee come to the front door. The employee told the dispatcher to have the officer come to the back door. After my officer informed the Schwanke-Kasten Jewelers employee that it was a Milwaukee Buck, the employee came to the front door and let them in. The employee requested that an officer stand by as they looked at the Rolexes, our officers refused and left the store. The officers then left the area."' [Source]

It's OK, he is a Milwaukee Buck. He is not like those other Negro bucks.....let me stop.

The name of the town is Whitefish Bay. You can't make this stuff up.

Poor Mr. Henson, he is learning a very valuable lesson in American life: All the money and fame in the world will not change how certain people view you. They might drop a hundred bucks (pun intended) to watch you dribble and shoot for the hometown team, but they will be just as scared of you as they are the Negro they saw in the mug shot on the evening news when they see you outside of the arena.

Sorry you had to learn the hard way young Mr. Henson, maybe you should be spending your money among your own people and investing in other things besides jewelry. (If you were going to buy an engagement ring or a Patek Philippe I apologize.)

"I was then approached by 2 officers and questioned about the dealer vehicle I was in which is apart of my endorsement deal with Kunes country Chevrolet and asked me what I wanted amongst other things that were just irrelevant to me being there just trying to shop at the store like a normal paying customer would do.."
That was your mistake young Mr. Henson. To the folks of Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, there is nothing "normal" about you.

Monday, October 19, 2015

I am so sick and tired of the sorryI got caught saying what I really believe apologies.

With all due respect to Elton John, sorry is not the hardest word to say.

I mean seriously, does anyone believe that Bubba Carpenter, an elected republican in Mississippi, while speaking among "friends", did not mean to say exactly what he said?

Poor Bubba was just too dumb to realize that there are cameras and microhpones everywhere these days.

Oh wait, I am getting ahead of myself. Here is what he said:

"JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A white Mississippi lawmaker apologized Monday for saying at a local Republican meeting that "a black judge" would decide how to spend money on public schools if state voters approve an education funding initiative.

Rep. Lester "Bubba" Carpenter, who lives in the northern Mississippi town of Burnsville, issued his apology hours after a cameraman posted a video online of a speech Carpenter made at a Tishomingo County Republican meeting.

Mississippi's Nov. 3 statewide ballot includes Initiative 42, which would allow people to sue if the state fails to provide "an adequate and efficient system of free public schools."

"If 42 passes in its form, a judge in Hinds County, Mississippi — predominantly black, it's going to be a black judge — they're going to tell us where the state education money goes," Carpenter said in the speech Saturday.

The speech was posted online Sunday by a cameraman for Ivy Broadcasting, which runs WRMG, a radio station and a local-access cable TV station in northern Mississippi and Alabama.

Carpenter said in a written statement Monday: 'I am deeply sorry for the comments I recently made. They were inappropriate, and I was completely out of line. There is no excuse for what I said. Please forgive me."'[Source]

Bubba, there is an "excuse" for what you said: You MEANT it!

I think it's time for a moratorium on apologies for racist statements. And I am sure that Hulk, Amy, Giuliana, Jamie, Fuzzy, and all the rest of the people who were caught saying publicly what they usually keep among friends would probably agree with me.

Sunday, October 18, 2015

I think that we can all agree that being a police officer can be a tough job. It's certainly not easy being on the front lines of protecting law abiding citizens against lawbreakers out there who prefer to break the law instead bringing themselves to abide by it.

Having said that, police departments around the country are going to have to do a better job of getting rid of the bad apples among their ranks, like the police officer in the following story.

"Virginia police officials are investigating an incident captured on video that appears to show a black man complying with an officer's demands, yet the officer still uses a Taser on him. (Pictured above.)

The video, which was posted to Facebook, shows a Fairfax County officer, who was not identified, with his Taser out and aimed at the man. The officer tells the man to place his hands on the officer's car, which the man appears to do. The officer then fires his Taser, striking the man, who screams and falls to the ground.

The officer then begins yelling at the man to roll over. An onlooker yells to the cop, "What'd you do that for?"

'A gentleman just happened to be walking down the sidewalk, and the cop pulls up in front of him and tells him to turn over [sic]. And as soon as he has his back turned toward him, he Tasers him. He didn't see it coming," a witness told Fox 5. "He told him to turn around. He turned around, he complied. And boom, he popped out his Taser and he shot at him."' [Source]
These kinds of incidents are far too frequent in our society. And we all know that Usher could make a million videos about police brutality and it wouldn't change the real problem: The "color arousal syndrome" affecting many of the people who join police forces and end up becoming police officers.

With all due respect toPastor Jay Dennis, police officers should not be worshiped, they should be praised when they do a good job, and held accountable when they act like the criminals who they are supposed to be protecting us from.

“Do you want to have no fear of authority?’” asked Dennis, reading from the modern language translation of the passage.” “`Do what is good and you will have praise from the same…. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing.’”“When [the apostle] Paul speaks of `authorities,’ by application that includes law enforcement officers,” Dennis told the congregation. “So here is the idea: When you obey the law, you have nothing to worry about; however, if you do wrong, and if you break the law, you should be fearful. The sword here is the instrument of punishment, and today that would be their weapons. God has given to these officers great authority that must always be respected.”'

Whatever pastor. Besides, I think that you and some of your brethren take this punishment and authority thing a bit too far.
Finally, it would be nice to see someone in "authority" knocking at Dick Cheney's door to haul him off to jail.

This is just one of the reasons why.

"Yesterday, the former vice president of the United States and one of the architects of the American torture program explained why he was unconcerned about the torture of innocent prisoners.

CHUCK TODD: Let me go to Gul Rahman. He was chained to the wall of his cell, doused with water, froze to death in C.I.A. custody. And it turned out it was a case of mistaken identity. DICK CHENEY: --right. But the problem I had is with the folks that we did release that end up back on the battlefield. [...] I'm more concerned with bad guys who got out and released than I am with a few that, in fact, were innocent.
CHUCK TODD: 25% of the detainees though, 25% turned out to be innocent. They were released.
DICK CHENEY: Where are you going to draw the line, Chuck? How are-- [...]
CHUCK TODD: Is that too high? You're okay with that margin for error?
DICK CHENEY: I have no problem as long as we achieve our objective.

A reminder: some of the most egregious torture cases took place during preparations for the Iraq War." [Source]

Wow! He is all for torturing innocent people if it will "achieve our objective".
It looks like Dick Cheney is helping to recruit some of our nation's police officers.

Thursday, October 15, 2015

This cut and paste job is from one of my favorite writers, David Love.

"Oh, Ben Carson, what went wrong? He was the pride of the black community back in the day, with his leadership in neurosurgery and his autobiography-turned-film, Gifted Hands.
But then he started speaking out — about politics — and decided to run for president. Now we don’t know him anymore, as he has become the darling of white conservatives.

Ben Carson would be the anti-Obama, the first black president designed especially for white conservatives. For the white right wing, he would be their useful Negro in Washington — better yet, their magical Negro.

Rupert Murdoch already set the stage for us, with a tweet that told us exactly what he thought of Carson as president versus the black president currently in the White House:

Rupert Murdoch

✔@rupertmurdoch

Ben and Candy Carson terrific. What about a real black President who can properly address the racial divide? And much else.

Read New York magazine for minority community disappointment with POTUS

After all, who is better qualified than Rupert Murdoch to determine who is a real black president? Murdoch later apologized, but surely he knew what he was doing. White conservatives — tired of hearing about racism and the complaints of black folks, and longing for the days when they could simply run roughshod over people of color without backtalk and uppityness — need a Ben Carson. And they’ve had a long time to think about this.

Clarence Thomas was the original prototype. By no means among the most qualified candidates for the Supreme Court — and not even the most qualified black Republican — Thomas served a useful role on the nation’s high court in dismantling everything his predecessor Thurgood Marshall stood for. Although he benefited from affirmative action and the civil rights movement, he and his handlers positioned him as the up-by-your-bootstraps Horatio Alger in blackface who needed no one to get ahead and made it up the ladder on his own. The story was made out of whole cloth, and it was not designed for black consumption, though some in the African-American community fell for the okeedoke, and it was too late once they woke up.

What we have gotten is a lot of self-hate, hatred of black people from the bench, and outright attacks on the legacy of the civil rights movement, including the gutting of the Voting Rights Act.
Enter Ben Carson, with his story of growing up in poverty and not needing government programs to get ahead. Since he entered the race, he’s just become worse and worse. In 2013, he said Obamacare was the worst thing to happen to Americans since slavery. He argued that homosexuality is a choice, asserting that prisons make you gay. Then, the doctor said that a Muslim should not become president, then said he could support a Muslim who denounces Sharia law, as if he really knows what Sharia law is.

Now, Carson is weighing in on the gun debate following the massacre in Roseburg, Oregon. Carson called for arming Kindergarten teachers, argued that the victims in the massacre should have fought the gunman, and even suggested the Holocaust “would have been greatly diminished” if Hitler had not disarmed the German people. And Carson also made comments directed towards LGBT families by claiming “traditional families with traditional, intact values do much better in terms of raising children. So let’s stop pretending that everything is of equal value.”

Carson is on the scene in order to make white conservatives feel comfortable in their skin and to validate them and their racism, Islamophobia, sexism, homophobia, their desire to return to the 1950s, and everything else. “A black man said it, so it must be alright,” they’ll say. A trail of outlandish, offensive comments is the only way a black man will get ahead in today’s GOP, the de facto party of white nationalism, for all of their lip service to outreach and the so-called big tent. And in the primaries, Trump and Carson are giving the unhinged white Republican base all the raw meat they can eat.

To his credit, Carson did break with Jeb Bush and supported a reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, which does not fit into the Tea Party agenda. But on everything else, he is on point- — if you are a white conservative, that is.Ben Carson should know better, but he is giving the voters what they want. No one is saying black people should be monolithic and think the same way, but Carson is not for black interests, nor is he intended for a black audience." [Source]I was raised in a Seventh Day Adventist home, so I was prouder of Dr. Ben than most. We shared the same race AND religion. Now, though, I am embarrassed for the man, and like David Love I find his pathetic pandering to right-wing ideologues embarrassing. I still respect him for what he accomplished, but I am saddened to think of what he has done to his legacy.

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Older, familiar leaders such as Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton and NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, are under challenge by a younger generation of bloggers known by such provocative screen names as Field Negro, thefreeslaveand African American Political Pundit. And many of the newest struggles are being waged online."~Howard Witt-The Chicago Tribune~

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